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Tonight, I was playing around during a routine, and this is what I came up with. Yup, I’m upside down. And yes, I am hanging by the tops of my feet and the inside of my knees. It was my first time ever trying this, and I was pretty proud. And now I’m sore. But it was worth it, 100%.

“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Last night I had a bit of a pole epiphany. I’ve been struggling lately to find my way when it comes to pole stuff. The shoulder injury certainly isn’t helping matters at all, and it looks like it will be something I will be dealing with for a long while to go. I saw my doctor last week, and she thinks that it’s likely a torn rotator cuff. Since it is going to be a year before I can get an MRI done, and then probably another 6-12 months after that to see a doctor, the injury will probably be healed before I actually get to see anyone about it. When I saw her, I was so worried that she was going to tell me that I had to stop doing pole while it healed, and the thought was breaking my heart. I was anxious and stressed leading up to the appointment, and I just might have held my breath when I asked her. The answer made me happy – I didn’t have to stop, I just had to modify my movements and not hang from that arm. Her message to me was that I needed to find the happy balance between hurting too much and just hurting.

So last night, I had my class, as usual. We are still working on the same routine, the one that has been challenging me. After a basic review, our instructor put the music on, and just told us to listen to it and let the music move us. She did this last week too, and it was a huge obstacle for me at first. I was so deep in my own head, listening to the little voices, that I couldn’t let go, and it showed in my movements. I wasn’t graceful and flowy, I was mechanical and robotic, like I was just going through the motions. When I started to relax, and focused on the notes and the beat of the music, the movements started to come more easily. There was nothing else in my mind aside from me, the floor and the pole, and I started to relax. I can’t tell you the difference that it made.

This week, knowing that I had the all clear to actually *do* stuff on the pole, I let myself go a little bit more. I got out of my head, and gave the voices of self-doubt a kick in the butt. I listened to the music, where the drum hit, the emphasis of each note. I let it flow through me, and I freestyled. It felt good.

Once I really let go, my muscles and my body just took over. I trusted that they knew what to do, and that they were strong enough to do the things that I wanted them too. I did layback (the one that is in the picture in the last pole post), and I felt the strength of my legs as they held me in place. I climbed. I spun. I did this

I realized that I haven’t been giving myself enough credit, and that I have been way too hard on myself. I tried things last night that I have never tried, just because. It gave me the confidence that I have been lacking for the past couple of months, and showed me that I just need to trust in myself. I have been working so hard for this for over a year, and last night, for the first time in a long time, I felt like the results were starting to show. I am really hoping that this is the start of a new journey for me, one filled with self confidence and some amazing new moves. I realized that I was the one holding myself back, and that only I could set myself free from that.

Kids really do say the funniest things. And they have the funniest logic.

Allow me to share an example of a conversation that went on in the car between my husband and son on the way to renew Q’s passport today. We were listening to music, and one of Q’s latest things is to ask about the name of the song and the artist who sings it. Here’s how it all went down:

Q:”Daddy, what song is this?”

M: “It’s called NIB”

Q:”Who sings this song?”

M:”It’s Ozzy Osbourne, you know, the guy who sings Crazy Train” [Note: Q loves Crazy Train, but refuses to believe that is the name, and calls it Crazy Tree instead]

Q:”Oh, Ozzy Osbourne. Hmmm.”

M:”It’s a really old song, dude. It was made about 10 years before Mummy and Daddy were even born!”

Q:”Not it’s not. It’s not an old song, it’s a good song!”

[Insert muffled, hysterical laughter here from Mummy, who is sitting in the passengers seat with a hand clamped over her mouth]

M:[totally deadpan] “Buddy, it is an old song. It can be an old song and a good song, you know.”

Q:”No. No it’s not. It’s a good song.” He was completely serious about it. There was NO way that he would believe that it could be both an old song and a good one. Nope, one or the other, that was it.

By this time, I is literally shaking with laughter and using everything possible not to laugh out loud, lest he think that I am laughing at him. Oh, to be 3 again.

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Self perceptions are a funny thing. Sometimes I wish that I could look in the mirror and see the same thing that everyone else sees. I wish I could see the beauty that my husband sees, the the funny, confident person that my friends see, and the person that my son sees. Instead, every time I look at myself, in the mirror, in pictures, through a glimpse in the window, I see the opposite. I see a girl with big legs, hair that is never quite right, and bags under my eyes. I see someone who struggles to maintain confidence, who is a pro at faking it till I make it. Someone who laughs too loud, or at the wrong times, and makes wisecracks that just aren’t funny.

The other day, I was at my pole class, and was really struggling with the routine we’re working on. It’s a sexy song and routine, and although I have the ability and skills to do it, I have this mental mind block for some reason, and it is just not coming together for me. I know that my shoulder injury contributes in part to this, but it’s more than that. I watch the other girls, my friends, and they all look so beautiful and self-assured. It’s really amazing to watch. I try to do the same thing, and I feel like an elephant on roller skates, mumbling around, feeling completely awkward and large, and so not sexy or beautiful. I mentioned this to my pole partner after the 5th or 6th frustrating time through the routine that night, and she gave me this incredulous look and said to me “You have NO idea how sexy and beautiful that was. I just stood here watching you, and I wished that I could have taken a video of it, so that you could have seen it too.”

That comment really got me thinking. Why am I so hard on myself? Why can’t I see these things? Is it because somewhere deep down I don’t want to believe these things about myself? Or it it something that a lot of people struggle with, not just me? I don’t have the answers yet, but this is something that I am going to work on figuring out. I don’t want to have this image of myself. I want to see through the eyes of the people who love me – that seems like a way better view to me.

Is this something that you’ve experienced? Or are you as comfortable with yourself as you seem to others?

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Seeing as how today is Mothers Day, Stasha decided that we could make a list of anything we wanted about motherhood, or 10 things we wish we could delete for Monday Listicles. I decided to do mine about motherhood, since I don’t know if I really want to publish my list of deletables. ;)

Some things I have learned from being a mum:

1. Sometimes things don’t turn out the way you planned, but that’s ok. I never thought that I would have a 4 pound, 11 ounce baby who spent the first week and a half of his life in the NICU. You roll with it.

2. It’s good to be flexible, both literally and figuratively. You never know when you are going to have to contort under a table to retrieve a kid, or a book, or who knows what else…

3. Sometimes you just need take a moment to breathe, look around, and realize how much fun you are actually having.

4. Bodily fluids are gross. (Actually, this one I knew before, but this has just cemented it for me.) Needless to say, I am not the mum who can catch kid-puke with my hands. That’s what blankets are for.

5. Kids are very resilient. They can take a bump, get bruised, and just keep going.

6. Sometimes the things that you thought that you would do, or not do, are the things that work best for your family. Before Q came along, I had very distinct ideas of how things would go. I never thought that I would be an extended breastfeeder, co-sleeper, or most of the other things that I have done. You just need to go with what works.

7. It’s ok to be yourself sometimes too. You are not just a mum, you are still a person. It took me a while to figure that out, but I am a better person for it. No mummy guilt.

8. How much fun it would be to experience things with him. The utter joy and excitement that he brings is something that I never could have imagined.

9. How great it would be to teach him things, and share my favourite things with him. He loves music, likes to take a spin on the pole, and loves to read. This makes me proud.

10. Just how full of love my heart is for him, and the family that we’ve created and become.